Debunking the notion that UX is all about design.

Until recently, I had been thinking that UX is all about opening up Figma, Adobe XD or whatever other tools you may prefer to use for designing mobile apps, webpages or just small fragments of a bigger project.

More often than not, this is the notion that is out there, even among the so-called ‘techies’. I say this because I was a victim of the notion and to reinforce the same, I asked several people that I know in tech and the answer was similar across the board, “UX is design stuff”.

Knowing what I know now, I feel the urge to debunk this sort of ‘prejudice’ (for lack of a better word) towards UX.

First things first, what is UX? User Experience(UX) is how a person(user) feels about interacting with or experiencing a product.

A person showing other people something on a laptop screen.

With the definition out of the way, let’s highlight some of the designers in UX, as a starting point since UX has been sort of centered on design.

  1. Interaction designers- Focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions.

  2. Visual designers- Focus on aesthetics, visual appeal and basically how the product looks.

  3. Motion designers- Focus on how it feels for a user to move through a product.

  4. Graphic designers- Focus on creating visuals that tell a story or a message.

There are quite several designers under the umbrella of design, others include Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality designers, Graphic Designers and the list goes on.

Now to the main agenda of writing this article, UX doesn’t just involve design. There is so much more that makes up the field of UX.

Before a high-fidelity prototype is presented to the programmers, there is a lot of work that is put in. To begin with and of paramount importance is Research and is in these three forms:

  1. Foundational Research- done before anything is designed and answers some key questions like what is to be built? what are the user problems? How can the problems be solved?

  2. Design Research- research done during the design phase that answers the question: How should we build the product?

  3. Post-launch research- happens after the product has been designed and developed and answers the question: Did we succeed in building the product?

As seen above, research is a key aspect of the Product Development Life Cycle, (which I will write about soon, so stay tuned) and it provides for another role in the field of UX, the UX Researchers.

UX Researchers, in a nutshell, conduct studies and interviews that helps learn how people use a product. They information they bring forth informs the whole design and development phase.

A lady taking down notes on a book.

UX Writers are tasked with the role of making the language within a product clearer to the users. This may usually be overlooked but right labelling, wording and general statement construction may make or break a product.

A person writing, maybe an article or story.

UX Engineers- They translate the intent of the design into a functioning experience, that is an app or webite.

An engineer fixing some cables.

UX Program managers- They ensure clear and timely communication so that the entire process, from designing to building the product runs smoothly from start to finish.

A program manager addressing staff.

If you have read up to this point, I am sure you now have a broader thought of what UX entails and it’s significance in the broad Product Development Cycle, and that was the whole idea of writing this article in the first place.

I will be writing a series of articles on specific, narrowed down topics about UX in the coming weeks as there is so much that UX has to offer and it is a very intersting field to venture into, if you are still searching for a niche in the tech ecosystem.

The main takeaway of this article is that UX involves more than simply designing. There is so much more to it and I will be writing in-depth articles about various key topics about User Experience. Stay tuned.